


A Private Little War

by kaasknot



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Extremely Dubious Consent, FaceFucking, HYDRA Trash Compactor Challenge, Humiliation, M/M, Mirror Universe, Multiple Orgasms, Overstimulation, Sex Pollen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2015-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-16 04:29:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3474479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaasknot/pseuds/kaasknot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Let me get those," Steve says, pushing up to his knees. Bucky falls back in surprise, but doesn't fight as Steve shuffles closer. He's only wearing his pajama top, unbuttoned down the front, and his cock is flushed and erect. Not as erect as Bucky's, but then he didn't take street aphrodisiacs, did he?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Private Little War

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a fic written for a kinky scenario of Star Trek origins... set in a kinky AU of Star Trek origins... and with a title that comes from a Star Trek episode. Subtle I am not. Also, [stoatsandwich](http://stoatsandwich.tumblr.com) is my queen. I bow to her. Thanks also to [lucymonster](http://lucymonster.tumblr.com) for giving me the idea of Stucky in the mirror!verse.
> 
> For those curious, this was written on Rammstein's album _Mutter_ on repeat.

"You sure it'll work?" Bucky holds the vial up; the dealer's eyes follow it, wide around the edges. It's not often he gets business from a higher-class customer, Bucky would wager.

"Sure thing, Boss," he says. "Takes an hour or so to get into full swing, but you'll feel it 'bout twenty minutes after you take it." He swallows.

Bucky stares the man down a little longer. He's raggedy, wearing the kind of clothes Steve wore before Bucky decided to be merciful. Probably lives in a squalid tenement. With rats. Bucky's lip curls. "How much?"

The man hesitates, licking his lips. "Normally I'd say twenty, but--"

Bucky cuts him off. "Normally you'd say ten, but for an upstanding citizen like me you'll cut a deal: three dollars."

"No way! I got kids to feed!"

"My sympathies," Bucky snaps. "Three."

"Six!"

"Four, and you'll take it if you don't want to see the business end of my Colt."

The man lapses into a chastened silence. "Four," he says glumly.

Bucky tucks the bills into his front pocket. "Wise man." He stares him down pointedly, his feet planted, until the bastard gets the hint and starts walking. Bucky watches him hunch off for a moment, then looks down at the vial in his hand. It's clear, completely unremarkable. He unscrews the lid; it reeks like peat and moonshine. He caps it and sticks it in his pocket. He watches the foot traffic for a while, allowing himself the luxury of an unguarded face as he plots.

Steve's getting restless. He's still perfectly respectful, but he holds to the exact letter of Bucky's orders and no further. Bucky will have to take him in hand soon, or Steve's gonna start getting uppity.

Bucky smiles to himself. Not after tonight, he won't be.

He pushes off from the wall and heads down the street. He's gotta press the flesh tonight, make nice with his allies and shove his rivals back in their place, and he'd made a reservation at Luigi's on Foster Ave. It's not the finest, but it's enough for his price bracket. His pop's been making noise about drawing too hard on the family expense account, so he's taking it a little easy this time. That ought to get the old man to shut up.

Steve, too. He always makes Bucky read his bank statements out loud while Steve fingers him open, and if he stutters once Steve won't let him come that night.

Whenever Bucky knocks him over and puts him back in his place, then he makes him eat them. They have a system.

Their system is--Bucky admits it's not usual. A patron like him shouldn't permit his ward free reign to plot hostile takeovers, but if Bucky's honest he likes watching the calculating light behind Steve's eyes. He likes foiling his plans with a well-placed counterstrike, and even moreso, he loves it when Steve does get the better of him--and Bucky can lie in wait until it's his turn.

His father's goons haven't got the better of him _once_ in the year since he and Steve started their private little war. Bucky feels keen and sharp, and the vial rests cool against his thigh. Steve'll win, sooner or later, but it won't be tonight--not if Bucky can help it.

He makes the mistake of mentioning Steve to one of the girls his father's been throwing at him. He can't remember her name, but she's pretty enough. She rolls her eyes. "Geez, Buck," she says. "All he ever seems to do for you is cause heartache. Why don't you just kill the little twerp already?"

Only Steve can call him Buck. She is no one; he will not be harmed for backhanding her. He sends her from the diner in tears.

By the time Bucky gets home, it's past eleven and he's reeling a little from the bourbon he drank in solidarity. Loyalty is essential, on these streets: finding it, keeping it, proving it. Bucky knows loyalty. Knows how to leverage it to get what he wants. He's careful about abusing it, too; it's a precious resource, solid gold currency. Everyone says to get Bucky Barnes on your side because he's loyal as a dog. Bucky usually guts whoever he catches saying it.

A man's gotta look to his reputation, after all.

He's ten minutes from his apartment when he stops and pulls out the vial. It gleams under the streetlights. He pops the cap and downs it in one gulp, grimacing at the moldy dishrag taste. He swallows once, hard, then walks on. He's got a ward to fuck into submission.

Steve's asleep when he gets in. Bucky lets him keep his own business affairs, such as he can find them; while it steams him a little that Steve's so often written off--idiots, the lot of them; Steve Rogers is devious like no other, if they'd give him a chance--he won't deny the hot thrill it gives him when Steve has to come crawling to him for spending money.

But anyway, Steve's most recent job has him getting up at four in the morning to come in and align the headlines on the printers for the morning run. He's in bed by eight these days if he can manage. Bucky rarely gives him the opportunity. He can take a nap, if he needs sleep that badly. Bucky slams the door behind him loud enough to rattle the plates in their cabinet.

"Steve!" he bellows. He feels a little warmer already, feels powerful, exhilarated. His cock twitches in anticipation. "Get your ass out here and get on your knees, or I swear to God Almighty I'll drag you out and chain you naked to the fire escape!"

He hears a loud thump from the other room. The idea of Steve tangled and awkward in his sheets sends heat down to Bucky's groin. He stands straight and takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Steve staggers out of his room, flicking on the light as he does. He's wearing his flannel pajamas and wool socks; it's a cold night, Bucky remembers. Steve blinks at him.

"On your knees," Bucky grates out. "Don't make me tell you again."

"You're sweating," Steve says instead, narrowing his eyes.

Bucky lunges across the living room and seizes a handful of Steve's hair. "What the fuck did I just say, you little shithead?" Bucky hisses, dragging him to his knees. "You don't ask questions in this household, I do."

Steve's got his face screwed up against the pain, but his eyes are burning hot and angry. It stokes the rage Bucky feels coiling between his shoulders. He lashes out, smacking Steve across the face with his free hand. Steve doesn't make a sound, just rides the blow. He glares at Bucky. Bucky huffs through a sudden rush of arousal.

"You're gonna take what I'm gonna give you," Bucky says, breathing heavily as he stares down at his goddamn _asshole_ of a roommate. "And you're not gonna say another word unless I say so. _I'm_ in charge, so if I say kneel, you fucking _kneel_."

"Anyone who has to say he's in charge ain't really in charge," Steve growls, and that's it. Bucky's _done_. He throws Steve to the ground (it ain't even hard, Steve's a scrap of nothing, for all that he's full of piss and vinegar) and starts unbuckling his belt. He plants a foot square on Steve's stomach when he tries to squirm away.

"You bite, I'm cutting off your dick and feeding it to you," Bucky says as he gets down on his knees.

"How're you gonna do that if I've just--" Bucky plants a hand over Steve's mouth.

"Why do I put up with you?" Bucky muses, digging his fingers into Steve's cheeks. He feels Steve trying to open his jaw, so he tilts his chin back, levering his palm beneath it to push his head down against the floorboards. "No, really, why do I?"

He pulls out his cock, strokes it twice. He's thrumming with a cozy, warm arousal, muted a bit by the alcohol but sharpened at the sight of Steve Rogers straining against his grip. He bends to suck a hickey in Steve's neck. He makes it big, so all New York can see it. Steve gives a muffled angry noise from beneath his hand.

Bucky straddles his skinny chest and pins Steve's arms against his body. He rests his free hand by Steve's head, bending down to stare him in the face. "Are you gonna be a good little bitch and suck me off, or are we gonna have to get nasty?"

Steve's eyes are furious, but he's stopped squirming. Bucky pulls back his hand and lays a bruising kiss on him. He tastes blood; Steve's bit himself. Good. Bucky slides his hand around the back of Steve's head and coaxes it up to a good angle. Steve is completely silent, rebellion in every rigid muscle of his tiny body. His fragile, weak little body...

Bucky's cock has swelled to the point of insistence, so he dispenses with the preliminaries and pulls it free. Steve keeps his mouth stubbornly shut. Bucky smirks and rests the swollen, red head against Steve's lower lip. The very obscenity of it coaxes a blurt of slick from him. Bucky chuckles at the red bloom in Steve's cheeks. Steve tries to keep a veneer of indifference to Bucky's lusts, but the joke's on him--his eyes are blown, and his tongue slips out to taste. Bucky sighs at the brush of that kitten-lick. "That's it," he says. "Come on, sweetheart, you know you want it."

All of a sudden he's engulfed by wet heat. Bucky's hips jerk forward in surprise, the head of his cock bumping against the back of Steve's throat. Steve's too much of an old hand to gag at this point; he gets to work instead, going at it as though there's a championship in cocksucking and he means to take the trophy. A giddy laugh bubbles up from Bucky's chest. Hell, maybe there is. Far be it from him to guess what fairies do in their spare time. He takes double handfuls of Steve's hair and fucks into that tight, moist suction.

He comes so quickly it's almost a let-down, shallow and unsatisfying, although it catches Steve off-guard, too. It's been so long since he choked on Bucky's jizz it's a reward in and of itself. Bucky doesn't back off, forcing him to cough and sputter around his cock, and the spasms of his throat are sweet against his spurting head. He half-expects to start softening, but to his surprise, he doesn't--his pleasure settles back down to the plateau he'd reached right before spiking up to orgasm. Maybe it's a little higher. Bucky's not sure. He doesn't much care; he's always envied girls their ability to go again and again, and here he is, with that same opportunity. He smiles. "Not done with you, yet," he says to Steve's wide eyes. He keeps him gagged with his cock a little longer, gloating over the string of come running down Steve's cheek and the puffy redness of his lips around his shaft.

"Gonna fuck you 'til you can't walk," Bucky croons. "Gonna use that mouth 'til you can't talk." Steve's eyes are narrowed again, staring up at him. He gives one hard swallow, and Bucky's eyes flutter shut against the onslaught. He shudders. He laughs, lightheaded and lighthearted. Four dollars? Four dollars was a _bargain_.

He pulls back, slipping slowly from between Steve's lips with a protracted, slick pop. A string of saliva clings to the head of his cock, and Bucky watches it, follows it back to Steve's panting lips and savors the image, before gravity takes hold and the string parts. Bucky's cock pulses with arousal, and it twitches untouched right before Steve's nose.

"Tempting," Bucky murmurs. "So tempting. You'd like it, too, wouldn't you? Sometimes I think you could live with my cock in your mouth. What do you think, Steve? What if I just didn't take it out? If I just sat there at the breakfast table with my dick in your mouth as I read the paper? Keep it warm for me, 'til I was ready to dirty you up again." He smears his cock over Steve's lips, tracing the shape of them. He stares down at Steve. A tickle of sweat sneaks down his back beneath his jacket. 

Steve says nothing, but there's a calculating air in his eye that makes the tension between them go sharp. Bucky's heart rate picks up. He can't help himself; that look in Steve's eye means their little war is coming to a head, and those moments are some of the most vivid in Bucky's life. He shakes himself and gets his head back in the game.

"Get up on all fours," he growls, swinging his leg over so Steve can move. Steve sits up, but only to rest back on his elbows.

"How're you feeling, Bucky?" he asks, his voice completely neutral.

Bucky flushes before he can school his expression. "You don't seem to be that great at listening, tonight, Rogers," he says. "Get on your fucking knees." The bruising anger he'd felt when he'd come in isn't there, anymore, but that's only because he's horny, he figures. He's got more important things on his mind than beating out the insolence in Steve's manner.

Steve goes up to his knees, but there's something too easy about it. Steve never does a thing willingly unless it's what he wants to do, and last Bucky checked, for all the sex is amazing, Steve _hates_ yielding. Bucky yanks down his pajama pants, tearing off the button on purpose because he knows Steve likes this pair. He'd hoped to get a rise out of him, but aside from a slight clenching of his fingers against the floorboards he gets nothing. Steve's in a full-on passive state, and _that_ reignites his anger. It's no fun if Steve doesn't get angry. He has to fight back before Bucky can whip him into submission.

He prods his fingers against Steve's hole, and he finds it properly stretched and lubed, as per his specifications. It only makes him angrier. He wants to hurt Steve, Goddamn it, not go easy on him. He seats himself in a single thrust, and the only sign Steve gives of having Bucky balls-deep in his ass is the tense, white-knuckled spread of his fingers. He's tight and cool and slick and, Jesus H., Bucky's gonna be hard-pressed not to shoot off right now, at this rate. He feels it boiling low in his belly, the knotted tension of an incipient orgasm, and he grits his teeth as it bubbles over anyway. He presses his fingers into Steve's hips, daring him to comment on his short fuse, but Steve keeps suspiciously quiet and rides out the short, involuntary thrusts as Bucky spends himself.

 _At least it was better than the last one_ , Bucky thinks, catching his breath. He's still hard. Maybe this isn't a disaster after all.

"You gonna fuck me, Bucky?" Steve asks, and it's suspiciously like the voice he uses when he's got _Bucky_ by the short and curlies, not as ass full of spunk and Bucky pressing bruises into the fine skin over his hips. Bucky glares down at him, at an utter loss for words. He fucks him instead, and tries not to feel as though the shine has gone off it.

He comes again, a little slower this time, thank _fuck_ , and even though it hits hard enough to make the world goes fuzzy at the edges, he's--he's still horny, there's none of that feeling of release or satisfaction, just throbbing, blood-hard _need_ \--

Bucky shakes his head and pulls out, pushing Steve over and rolling him onto his back. Bucky's cock is so hard it's almost flush with his belly, a livid red against his pale skin. He rips off his jacket, flinging it over the back of the couch, and pulls both of his shirts over his head at the same time. Steve's eyes are slow and lazy on Bucky's flushed, sweaty chest.

Bucky hates him. Hates that he can unbutton his top with unhurried calm while Bucky fumbles at his shoelaces with fingers that feel twice their normal size. He contemplates digging out his pocketknife and cutting them loose.

"Let me get those," Steve says, pushing up to his knees. Bucky falls back in surprise, but doesn't fight as Steve shuffles closer. He's only wearing his pajama top, unbuttoned down the front, and his cock is flushed and erect. Not as erect as Bucky's, but then he didn't take street aphrodisiacs, did he?

Bucky doesn't think he's come once, yet. Bucky nurses the vicious stab of gladness that thought gives him.

Steve's fingers brush against his ankle as he pulls off Bucky's shoes and socks, setting them neatly to the side. He runs his thumb over the ball of the joint, and Bucky knows, now, the balance is shifting. His thoughts are in muddle, plans and punishments whirling around each other in a conflicting mental shout, but none of them come together. He watches Steve run his hands up his still-clothed thighs and he wills them to move up, toward his cock, to take the edge off.

He should know better, by now. He's lived with Steve a year and three months, and all that's taught him is Steve Rogers will take the time to learn exactly what you want--and then do the exact opposite. True to form, Steve completely ignores Bucky's hard-on, instead peeling off his shorts and skinning them, along with Bucky's slacks, down his legs. Then he pushes Bucky back with a gentle hand to his chest. The cold floor sends a tremor through his body.

"Please, Bucky," Steve says, breathy and sluttish, "Tell me what you want me to do. _Please_." He sounds like he's on the edge, he sounds like Bucky's every nastiest fantasy. Bucky's throat goes dry. He stares at Steve, stares at how he's kneeling tall over him, unbowed and triumphant. Steve throws his head back. "Bucky..." He runs a hand down his own stomach toward his cock, but he doesn't touch it, instead digging his fingers into the soft skin of his lower belly. "Bucky, _please_ , I need to _feel_ you..."

Bucky makes a choked noise. His hips stutter up despite himself, unable to keep steady against the onslaught of the image Steve presents him. The _fantasy_. It feels tainted--the glitter in Steve's eyes doesn't belong, but the way he writhes above Bucky, it's an arrow of heat straight down to his balls.

He swears he's burning. He's on Steve before he knows what he's doing, taking them both down to the floor, and then he's pushing into Steve's cool body against the backdrop of Steve's laughter. the squeeze of Steve's ass, it's a blessing, it's bliss, it's too much. Bucky's coming in cramping spurts--and then Steve bites down on the sensitive spot behind his ear, and Bucky's coming again, another orgasm wringing from him on the coattails of the first. Steve's body is no longer a blessing, it's a curse, and he whimpers against the slick, overwhelming friction against the head of his cock. He tries to pull back, but Steve wraps his legs around his hips before he can, yanking him back in. Bucky whimpers and buries his face in Steve's shoulder.

Steve runs a gentle hand through Bucky's hair, stroking the nape of his neck while the other clasps him in place. His hands are cool. They light trails of sparks beneath his skin. Bucky trembles.

"Shh," Steve says. "Let go, Bucky. I've got you."

Bucky lets out a stifled sob. _No_ \--

" _Yes_ ," Steve hisses, squeezing around Bucky's trapped cock, and Bucky's elbows buckle. "You _will_." His hands turn vicious, scratching at Bucky's skin. Steve drags his head back by his hair, and Bucky gives a pathetic mewl before coming again. He closes his eyes even as he twitches in Steve's ass, his hips jerking and his toes curling up. He tries to fold in on himself, but Steve holds him up by his hair.

"Do you yield?" Steve says, soft and gentle as a dagger in the dark.

Bucky gasps. "No."

All of a sudden Steve's gone, the merciful softness of his skin replaced by empty air. Bucky curls on his side where Steve left him. He brings up a hand to touch himself--but Steve smacks it away. "Not until you yield," Steve said. "Until then, you come when I say. Do you understand, Bucky?"

"Fuck you." His voice is broken in his own ears.

"Good." A hand brushes through his sweaty hair, then seizes a handful. Bucky goes up on his knees as Steve pulls. Steve keeps walking; Bucky shuffles behind him, hunched against the pain; his cock brushes against his stomach, his thighs bump against his balls. He think he might go insane. Steve hauls him into their bedroom and flings him against the bed. "Get on."

Bucky does, his limbs feeling fragile and wobbly. He lays down on his belly, and he's humping the sheets before he can stop himself. Steve lets him for a moment, then burrows his hands under Bucky's side and hauls him over.

That's the thing about Steve. He looks weak, but he's not. "Bet you're milked dry," he says, trailing his fingers over the tops of Bucky's thighs. He skips a hand over to fondle Bucky's balls. Bucky arches on a soundless groan. "Wanna see, Buck? Wanna see if there's anything left in you to call you a man?"

Bucky doesn't answer, caught in the singular press of Steve's palm against his nuts. He pushes them up toward Bucky's body, drawing out the orgasm as he does. Bucky tries to bite it back--much good that's done him, so far--but then Steve's knuckles brush against his shaft, and really, he didn't have a chance. Painful, drawn-out spasms wrack through him. He looks down at his dick out of morbid curiosity. He sees his pisshole twitching and gasping, but his balls don't have anything left to give.

Steve chuckles. "Guess not."

His cock doesn't feel like it's made of flesh and blood, anymore, it's so hard. Steve doesn't say anything, just rolls Bucky's balls against his body, sending shivers of pain through his groin. Bucky's almost positive something has ruptured. He reaches down to check if the skin is split over his dick, but all it does is set him off again. Tears blur his vision. He jacks himself through it; he can't help it. The urge to come is so strong, the need for stimulation so acute it drives him on even after he comes two more times and the tears spill hot over his temples. He hunches against the strain. He longs for the resistance of a good, wet orgasm; this is like puking dry.

"Do you yield?" Steve's breath tickles his ear.

"N-no," Bucky whispers back. It sounds weak. He won't hold out much longer.

Steve seems to sense it, too, because he knocks Bucky's hand away and takes a firm grip on his dick. "You sure?"

Bucky gives a tiny, stifled whimper and bites his lip. He doesn't say it.

"Well, if you're sure." And Steve pumps his fist. Bucky arches up with a sharp cry. Steve does it again. Bucky's abs are screaming at him, but he can't help it: he's too tightly strung. He thrusts into Steve's grip and loses himself. Steve is merciless. Bucky begs for the sun, begs for the stars in the sky, begs for Steve to fucking _stop_ \--but Steve won't. Bucky lets out a sob.

"I yield," he rasps. "I yield."

"Say it again," Steve hisses, squeezing the swollen head of Bucky's dick.

"I yield!" Bucky cries, and it's as much from pain as it is the oblivion of defeat. His body wracks through another orgasm.

Then the cool vise of Steve's hand is gone, and Bucky's hips stutter up. "Please," he whimpers, but Steve pulls away, reaching for something past the edge of the bed. Bucky closes his eyes. His heart is pounding in his ears; the trail of his own sweat down his thighs is torment. He scrabbles at the bedclothes. "Please."

"You'd do anything I tell you to, right now, wouldn't you," Steve says, swinging back and running his fingers through Bucky's sweat-soaked hair. "I could tell you to kiss the ground I walk on and you'd do it."

"Steve," Bucky mumbles.

Steve presses a tender kiss against his lax mouth. "You will address me as 'sir'," he says. His hand fists in Bucky's hair. It's a small pain.

"Yes, sir."

Bucky feels the tension slip out of him. He's at the bottom, he's got nowhere left to fall. If he trusts Steve at all, it's that he won't murder him in his sleep. He lets himself fall away.

Distantly he's aware of Steve nudging him up to his knees, and of his fingers prying him open, pressing downward even as his thumb curls up against his taint. He hears himself crying out as though from a distance; reality is warped and frayed, and the only thing he knows for sure is Steve's fingers stretching open his ass. His cock feels like an iron rod dangling from his crotch; it barely feels part of him, anymore. He feels each individual drop of sweat on his skin; each drying patch of lube and come sets him shuddering. The slow press of Steve's cock, the twist of pain as he screws up into Bucky without nearly enough prep, pools like liquid heat up his spine.

He's going to die. His body squeezes around Steve's erection, and Bucky reconciles himself to his inevitable death. He's pretty sure his dick is going to fall off, if nothing else. That'll disappoint the old man.

Steve's spunk feels cool, when he finally spurts. His breath raises hairs on the back of Bucky's neck. "Next time, don't take back-alley drugs," he says, and eases out. Bucky knows that's it for Steve, tonight; he's never been able to go past two in a day, no matter how much Bucky's prodded him. Bucky buries his face in the pillow. He's still hard.

Steve disappears. Bucky drifts, caught on the cresting spasms as his body works itself up to another orgasm. He's got a charley horse in his thigh that feels like the muscle is tearing each time he clenches up. Steve returns. He's carrying a bowl of water, a full glass, and a couple of towels draped over his arm.

"You couldn't know, 'cause the uppercrust is fucking ignorant," Steve says to him. "So I won't be mad at you this time. But if you pull a stunt like this again--" he seizes the scruff of Bucky's neck. "Are you listening? You pull something like this again and I'm gonna take my belt to your ass until you can't sit for a week. Do we understand each other?"

"Yes, sir," Bucky sighs. It hurts to move.

Steve lets go and soaks one of the towels. He runs it over Bucky's back, squeezing water out over his heated skin. Bucky gives a weak moan. It's cold. He tries to bat the towel away.

"Cut it out," Steve snaps, slapping his tender inner thigh. Bucky hisses, tries to curl up like a pillbug.

"'S cold."

"No, you're overheating, you fucking idiot. Let me cool you down so you don't die in the night." He pushes Bucky back to the bed, and Bucky goes. He doesn't have anything left in him to fight. He shivers and comes three more times as Steve wipes him down, trembling and sweating all the while.

Steve lays the other towel as a cold compress against his dick. He nudges Bucky's thighs apart and presses it against his balls and the swollen, throbbing flesh of his taint. The weight of it, the tingling bite of the temperature, send Bucky humping up against it, but some of the pain drains away, too. It helps. Steve holds the glass of water up to Bucky's lips.

"Drink," he says. "If you don't get sick you can have another." Bucky drinks. He didn't realize how thirsty he was until he feels the water slipping down his throat. He tries to drink faster, caught in mindless sensation, but Steve won't let him. He pulls the glass away to wipe him down some more. Bucky lets himself settle into the mindlessness of submission, lets himself forget until later that Steve is his closest enemy, lets his limbs go slack for as long as Steve is willing to tolerate moving them.

He feels the handcuffs go around his wrists, tying his hands to the bedposts so he won't chafe himself in the night. Even through the waves of heat and arousal, he falls asleep. His dreams are dark and strange.

**Author's Note:**

> "K'airth: ritual vendetta of the Braxaná. The name comes from _ko_ (private or personal) and _sairth_ (war), and identifies a personal vendetta which has been allowed to dominate the lives of both parties.
> 
> The Braxaná revere the arts of warfare and regard the true k'airth as a military campaign in miniature. Just as troops must prepare themselves to face the enemy, _k'airth-v'sa_ , or 'honored mate of the private war,' must focus his entire being on gaining the skills and knowledge necessary to defeat his opponent. The more one devotes oneself to the contest, the more worthy one will be of eventual triumph. Since it is assumed that one's opponent is undergoing the same process, the k'airth is as much about the perfection of two opposing warriors as it is about the question of who wins what.
> 
> K'airthi figured heavily in the early folklore of the Braxaná and in the literature of later generations. Although it has been centuries since a true k'airth has been declared, the image of a man driven to perfect himself by the all-consuming hunger to defeat an enemy is a popular one in Braxin entertainment. The sustained passion of the unconsummated k'airth has inspired many works of art, often with strongly sexual overtones; the poet Beltas wrote in 1,243 A.C. that 'when the hunger for combat is conjoined with sexual desire, it becomes the ultimate expression of human passion.'"  
> \--Friedman, C.S. _In Conquest Born._ Daw Books, Inc.: New York, NY, 1986 (2001 reprint). 513-514.
> 
> (come visit me on [tumblr](http://kaasknot.tumblr.com/post/112611788254/a-private-little-war-kaasknot-captain-america))


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